Doctor M said:

TheDigitalBits had an interesting article a little while back regarding color changes made for the 3D version of Top Gun which has a shift towards orange. ( http://www.thedigitalbits.com/columns/the-3rd-dimension/update-on-top-gun-3d )

The important bit is this:

Many colorists, especially when mastering for video have been trained to hate the color red because of the bleeding issues with NTSC televisions. As such, they instinctively avoided it, which is one of the reasons why “the film has never looked this way before.” The last master for Top Gun was run at least 7 years ago, and in that time we’ve jumped several generations of technology in terms of digital color timing tools. In 1986, everything was chemical – you did the best you could to get the colors you wanted. Today, you can turn everything any color of the rainbow you desire.

It makes me wonder how many of the changes we perceive is more because of our familiarity with old home video masters and not the theatrical colors.

For me that quote reads add what we could not do chemically on the day, they can alter now.

As in they could not shoot with a green tint but now they can put one in.

If Peter Jackson comes out and says fotr was meant to be green but we goofed at the DI then would people accept the new version as definitive?